URBAN ATTRACTIVENESS AND COMPETITIVE POLICIES IN OSLO AND MARSEILLE
The waterfront as object of restructuring, culture-led redevelopment and negotiation processes
Heidi Bergsli
ǡ
ǡ
ʹͲͳͷ
© Heidi Bergsli, 2015
Series of dissertations submitted to the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo No. 536
ISSN 1504-3991
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission.
Cover: Hanne Baadsgaard Utigard.
Printed in Norway: AIT Oslo AS.
Produced in co-operation with Akademika publishing, Oslo.
The thesis is produced by Akademika publishing merely in connection with the thesis defence. Kindly direct all inquiries regarding the thesis to the copyright
LIST OF CONTENTS
1.INTRODUCTION TO THESIS ... 1
Framing the study ... 1
Introducing the empirical study ... 9
The research design ... 19
Outline of thesis ... 23
2.URBAN POLICIES BETWEEN ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL EXPLANATIONS ... 24
Cultural political economy (CPE) ... 25
Urban restructuring and competitive policies ... 27
The knowledge society in an urban context ... 37
The cultural turn in geography and the city ... 44
The goal of social cohesion in new urban policies ... 49
3.RESEARCHING URBAN POLICIES ... 54
Investigating urban objects in a changing world ... 55
The comparison of cities ... 58
A comparative case study research design ... 60
Conducting fieldwork in Oslo and Marseille ... 64
The data material grounding the case study ... 65
4.PORT CITY OR FJORD CITY ... 76
Deindustrialisation and degradation of the inner city ... 78
A collaborative organisation of a concept competition ... 80
Fjordbyen as a municipal strategy for city centre expansion ... 84
Aspirations for a prominent metropolitan core ... 85
Governing Fjordbyen ... 91
Promoting the knowledge city ... 104
The fjord city as a consolidated vision ... 107
5.A EURO-MEDITERRANEAN METROPOLIS ... 109
The rise and fall of an industrial city ... 109
A necessary renaissance ... 113
Euroméditerranée as an up-scaled political strategy ... 116
Governing Euroméditerranée ... 117
Reimagining the territory ... 127
Euroméditerranée changing the horizon of Marseille ... 133
6.THE CAPITAL CITY OF CULTURE ... 136
The opera house - a lever of a “capital of culture” ... 137
MuCEM and the European capital of culture ... 157
The role of cultural institutions to the capital city of culture ... 172
7.RECONFIGURATION OF THE CITY CENTRE ... 179
Social and spatial cohesion in inner city plans ... 180
The landscape strategy in Oslo ... 183
Rebalancing Marseille by policy-led gentrification ... 190
Aesthetic planning ... 198
Creating hubs in the urban landscape ... 202
City life and diversity ... 205
Structured coherence in city centres ... 211
8.PRODUCTION OF PLACE ... 215
The role of history and heritage in the re-narration of cities ... 218
The role of public space... 226
Social diversity in area-based planning ... 235
The production of place through the notion of quality of place ... 242
The production of place in Oslo and Marseille ... 248
9.CULTURAL STRATEGIES IN THE CREATIVE CITY ... 250
Creative cities ... 251
Cultural planning in the waterfront projects ... 255
Temporary spaces for art ... 263
Cultural production in culture-led urban redevelopment ... 265
The future of small-scaled cultural offers ... 270
Artistic intervention ... 280
The difference that cultural policies make ... 284
10. SPACES FOR DIFFERENCE IN THE COSMOPOLITAN CITY ... 286
Cosmopolitan urban society ... 287
Institution-building capabilities and cultural identities... 295
Citizens and negotiation ... 306
Policies for diversity and local voice in Oslo and Marseille ... 316
11. CONCLUSION ... 319
Waterfront projects within wider urban restructuring ... 320
Culture-led urban redevelopment and structured coherence ... 324
Waterfronts as welfare? ... 327
Toward a new perspective on the diverse and creative city... 329
REFERENCES ... 333
APPENDIX. LISTS OF INTERVIEWS AND PUBLIC MEETINGS ... 361
List of tables Table 1. Societal phenomena and terms of the knowledge-based economy. ...40
Table 2. Secondary data used in the study. ...67
Table 3. Absolute and relative population size and change in Oslo’s eastern inner city districts. 1949-2014...79
Table 4. Changes in the inner city's shares of Oslo's population. 1949-2014. ...80
Table 5. Population patterns in the city districts (arrondissements) of Marseille. 1975-1990....113
List of figures Figure 1. The research design...22
Figure 2. The ownership of Bjørvika. ...98
Figure 3. The Administrative Council of Euroméditerranée. ...119
Figure 4. Average gross income level in Oslo's districts. 2013...189
Figure 5. Median income in Marseille's districts per consumption unit. 2010...190
List of illustrations Illustration 1. Marseille's topography...11
Illustration 2. Oslo's topography. ...11
Illustration 3. The districts of Oslo. . ...12
Illustration 4. The districts of Marseille. ...13
Illustration 5. The inner city of Oslo...14
Illustration 6. The inner city of Marseille...15
Illustration 7. Fjordbyen's areas.. ...16
Illustration 8. Euroméditerranée and its zones and areas.. ...17
Illustration 9. The plan for Bjørvika, Sørenga, Kongsbakken and Grønlia. ...97
Illustration 10. Bjørvika rising...99
Illustration 11. Tjuvholmen. ...103
Illustration 12. A building representative of the earlier decaying urban fabric of Marseille. ...114
Illustration 13. The old and new Marseille...129
Illustration 14. The Opera House in Bjørvika. ...137
Illustration 15.The kiosk of the Viking ship Museum. ...154
Illustration 16. The Munch Museum at Tøyen and the planned building in Bjørvika...155
Illustration 17. The MuCEM's old and new buildings. ...157
Illustration 18. The fort Saint Jean housing MuCEM...163
Illustration 19. The capital of culture supported by the Chamber of Commerce. ...169
Illustration 20. The material upscaling of Oslo and Marseille. . ...175
Illustration 21. The Barcode complex reached from Gamle Oslo. ...186
Illustration 22. New buildings from Gamle Oslo to Barcode...187
Illustration 23. Renovation in rue de la République. ...194
Illustration 24. The selling of rue de la République...195
Illustration 25. Art selling the street...196
Illustration 26. The ordinary city life of Marseille. ...200
Illustration 27. Undesired and desired design in Marseille. . ...201
Illustration 28. The planned new central train station in Oslo ...203
Illustration 29. Make a ring around the National Gallery. ...220
Illustration 30. The silo in Arenc. ...223
Illustration 31. Public space at Tjuvholmen. ...227
Illustration 32. The Common Stasjonsallmenningen. ...228
Illustration 33. Public art in Bjørvika (Barcode/Opera Quarter). ...229
Illustration 34. The J4 with the rising Villa Méditerranée. ...232
Illustration 35. The housing project M5...234
Illustration 36. The weekly market at Place de la Joliette...235
Illustration 37. A transnational social space...241
Illustration 38. The Barcode housing the Opera Quarter. ...243
Illustration 39. The shopping offer desired in the Opera Quarter...244
Illustration 40. Shop facades in Euroméditerranée before and after renovation. ...245
Illustration 41. Shop mirroring Tjuvholmen. ...245
Illustration 42. The grimness of the port replaced by the grimness of design. Sørenga. ...248
Illustration 43. Docks des Suds. ...263
Illustration 44. Cathédrale de la Major and the funfair in harmony. ...265
Illustration 45. Borgen, an artist production site. ...267
Illustration 46. Friche de Belle de Mai...269
Illustration 47. MS Innvik located in front of the Harbour Warehouse. ...272
Illustration 48. The original building of la Minoterie at la Joliette...279
Illustration 49. Collège Izzo. ...297
Illustration 50. The skateboard ramp at la Friche de Belle de Mai...301
Illustration 51. Excerpt of the current plan of Bjørvika.. ...310
Illustration 52. The alternative plan for Bjørvika. . ...310
Illustration 53. The street is [not] chic. [It is in combat]...316
Illustration 54. An outdated aesthetics. ...326
Illustration 55. In the city in making, the future is still open to alternative horizons. ...332
List of abbreviations
ABD Archives et Bibliothèque départementales Gaston Defferre (the archives and library of the District Department des Bouches-du-Rhône)
AHO Oslo School of Architecture and Design
AGAM Agence d’Urbanisme de l’Agglomération Marseillaise (the planning agency of Marseille’s region)
BUK Byutviklingskomitteen (Standing Committee on urban development in Oslo City Council)
CCIMP Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie Marseille Provence (Chamber of commerce and industries Marseille Provence)
CIAT Comité Interministériel d’Aménagement de Territoire (the inter- ministerial committee for territorial development)
CPE Cultural Political Economy
CVPT Centre Ville Pour Tous (local association “a city centre for all”) CiQ Conseil de Quartier (Neighbourhood Council)
DATAR Délégation interministérielle à l’aménagement du territoire et à l'attractivité régionale (Inter-ministerial Delegation for Territorial Development and Regional Attractiveness)
DDEAI Direction de développement économique et des Affaires internationales de la Communauté urbaine (The Administration of economic development and international affairs in the urban agglomeration)
EPAEM Etablissement Public d’Aménagement d’Euroméditerranée (Euroméditerranée urban development agency)
EU European Union
FRAC Le Fonds régional d'art contemporain (the Regional Funds for Contemporary Art) HAV The real estate company of Oslo Port Authorities
HLM Habitation à Loyer Modéré (Low-rent housing)
INSEE Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies [France])
MuCEM Musée des Civilisations d'Europe et de Méditerranée (Museum of Civilization in Europe and in the Mediterranean)
KHiO The Norwegian Academy for the Arts KIBS Knowledge-Intensive Business Services
KOP Kulturoppfølgingsprogrammet (The Cultural programme for Bjørvika) NOK Norwegian kroner (1 euro is ca. 8 NOK)
OIN Opération d’Intérêt National (Operation of national interest) GPMM Grand Port Maritime de Marseille (Port of Marseille Fos)
PACA Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur (the region forming a territorial authority) PBE Plan- og Bygningsetaten (Oslo’s Agency for Planning and Building Services) R&D Research and development
ROM Norwegian Railways’ real estate company
SNCF Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français (French Railways) ZAC Zone d’Aménagement Concerté (Concerted development zone)
Acknowledgements
I have carried out this thesis in full accordance with the Rom expression Lungo Drom. It has been a long and winding road, yet eased by Dylan’s poetry and tunes, and by the lightness of the joyful
“noise” of RR ‘podcasted in the streets’ of Oslo and Marseille.
The journey has almost ended. First of all, I am deeply grateful to my supervisor Oddrun Sæter, for her knowledge, interest, encouragement and enduring engagement in my work and wellbeing, and to my supervisor Terje Wessel, for his generosity, geographical insight and caution about important matters that slipped away.
I am also grateful to the Urban Research Programme, the Faculty of Art, Design and Drama and generally to the Oslo and Akershus College of Applied Sciences (HiOA) for accommodating and supporting this thesis research. I owe much to the support provided and the challenging tasks entrusted to me. I am also thankful to the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo for admittance to the PhD-programme, and to Per Gunnar Røe for all backing.
I would also like to thank Lise Myhre at the University of Stavanger for all her inspiration, and Bjarne Rogan at the University of Oslo for all assistance on the French case.
However, this thesis rests fully on the generosity of informants who have used their precious time to assist my project. In addition to the necessary information and discourses provided, I am moved by the engagement and insight that many of them showed. I deeply thank them.
In Marseille, I am grateful to the researchers who consulted me in the research process. Several people have been particularly meaningful to my work. I thank Philippe Gaboriau for kindly inviting me to benefit from the research resources and friendly milieu at the Shadyc; Damien Brochier for becoming a friend and an indispensable, informed discussant; and Maurice Olive for being such a generous researcher in all facets of the term. I am also grateful for the good times spent with deeply valued friends, especially Beb, Annabel, Guillaume, Christoph, Julie, Barbara, Monia, Marie-Hélène, Nathalie and Jakline.
The School of Environment and Development at the University of Manchester is much appreciated for hosting me for some months in 2010 through the kind invitation of Kevin Ward. I also thank Oslo School of Architecture and the PhD-group of 2006 for teaching me interesting and valuable
perspectives from another field.
In Oslo, my day-to-day research and private life has been entangled and dependent on the interest and care of colleagues, friends and family. I owe my gratitude to the urban study group Bynerdene for good and fun discussions. I thank Espen Dahl, Tor Einar Edvardsen, Ellen Marie Forsberg, Erika Gubrium, Sidsel Gunnerød, Trine Sofie Mathiesen and Anne Ullmann for being important people to me during my years at HiOA. In my last week at Sosialforsk, Ivar Lødemel made me aware of the values of procrastination: I’ll bring this along. I warmly thank Inger Marie Lid, Liv Bente Belsnes, Alf Tore Bergsli and Hilde Solli for precious help. Especially valuable was their readiness to support me in the final stages.
My dear Norwegian friends are soon to be bothered a lot more than they have been the last months - I look so much forward to it! I am highly appreciative to my family for all their love, and particularly to Lasse for jazzing up my life.
Lastly, I will commemorate two researchers who I was fortunate to know and learn from, but who sadly passed away too early, Karl Georg Høyer and Rachel Rodriguez-Malta. My dear grandmother Sigrid passed away in January 2015. I hope I will walk my life with as much social engagement, strength, warmth and humanism as she did.
1. INTRODUCTION TO THESIS
Framing the study
The sea has nourished and mobilised man, it has been a practical and necessary element to human survival and development, and it has connected cities around the world. The force and immensity of the ocean have given it a dangerous and mythical image, yet from the 18thcentury, the image of the sea changed from one of danger to a locus of recreation (Corbin, 1994). It became depicted as an aesthetic object, part of a landscape. The view upon cities also took a turn. A range of port cities developed as wealthy, bustling and growing places as part of industrialisation. The horror previously described and felt to be lurking in nature was now seen to inhabit large, polluted and crowded cities: danger was no longer mythically ascribed to the world untouched by man, but was conceived in the unordered, unruly and unsafe industrial city, with uncivilised man as the threat (N. Smith, 2010:20).
Today, the seaside and the city are in vogue. Numerous cities are “shaking off” their industrial remnants. As port areas invite new uses, the waterfront represents a correspondence between the aesthetic water and rentable land. This landscape materialises and symbolises assets and values of the post-industrial city. Urban restructuring and revitalisation aim at meeting new spatial requirements and preferences. The competitive drive is currently a central trait of urban policies: in its most explicit version by a neoliberal rationale, in its discursive version by the requirements of the knowledge-based economy, and in its material and symbolic form as the production of an attractive city. Competition is dialectically connected to attractiveness, a joint political phenomenon signalling shifting priorities and strategies in cities, and which imply the strategic combination of space and culture in new urban policies.
The objective of the thesis is to investigate socio-spatial dynamics and implications of culture-led urban redevelopment policies and processes in Oslo and Marseille. The objective is addressed by a study of three research questions targeting: i) the aims of redevelopment projects and their role in urban restructuring; ii) how culture-led urban redevelopment processes are socio-spatially embedded and targeted, and iii) how waterfront projects are governed and negotiated. The questions are addressed by a comparative case study of the redevelopment processes of Oslo and Marseille, through the scope of the waterfront projects Fjordbyen and Euroméditerranée. Before introducing the perspective, the cases and the research design, I will situate this study in relation to two fields of empirical research: urban waterfronts and culture-led urban redevelopment.
Urban waterfronts
Throughout history, the port has had a mystic and attractive aura, symbolising danger but also cosmopolitanism, wealth creation and exchange (Corbin, 1994). Though urban ports are still places of trade, transit and manufacturing, deindustrialisation and suburban living preferences have in the words of Gordon MacLeod et al.(2003:1656) “left many urban landscapes
pockmarked with horrific scars, whether in the form of derelict warehouses, dilapidated housing or obsolete waterfronts”. In the words of Richard Marshall (2001a:3), the waterfront is now an urban space in which articulations of hope for urban vitality are endorsed.
Roy Mann identifies (1988:177) several trends on which contemporary waterfront developments are modelled:
Large-scale mixed-use development; open edge and access improvement; lessening of highway encroachment; small stream and canal bankside development; historic restoration and imitation;
blossoming of the people-place/ market place; world exposition development on the waterfront;
integration of environmental art and lighting; the growth of festivals and other ephemeral events;
and the increase in the regulation of waterfront site development characteristics.
These characteristics are not confined to urban waterfronts, as urban ports are not the only
“wastelands” resulting from deindustrialisation (Swyngedouwet al., 2002; Fainstein, 2008).
Urban mega-projects seem to be modelled in ways combining aesthetics with larger restructuring of the city to gain economic growth. Aesthetics, as the relationship between man and
environment, whereby the experience is appreciated, perceived and enjoyed (Dewey, 2005), orient urban waterfronts in a visually distinct framing.
The characteristics of waterfront development have been investigated in a wide array of research, which Peter Hall (1991) called the “new urban frontier” more than two decades ago.
Several themes treated in waterfront studies can be identified as follows, though with a non- exhaustive mention of references; Not only has the nature of the waterfront been studied as a new mode of planning(Breen & Rigby, 1994, 1996; Malone, 1996b; Marshall, 2001b; S. V.
Ward, 2006; Desfor, 2011), it has more generally been a laboratory for studies of urban redevelopment policies ranging from studies of governance(Bassettet al., 2002; Desfor &
Jørgensen, 2004; Bezmez, 2008; Scharenberg & Bader, 2009; Shaw, 2013), public participation (J. T. White, 2014), environment and security(Cowen & Bunce, 2006; Bunce & Desfor, 2007;
Bunce, 2009), global-local relations(Hoyle, 2000; Saito, 2003; T.C. Changet al., 2004), tourism and place promotion(Craig-Smith, 1995; Craig-Smith & Fagence, 1995; Page, 1995;
McCarthy, 2004; Oakley, 2007), culture(O'Brien, 1997; A. L. Jones, 2006); sustainability (Shaw, 2013), social inequality and conflict (Campo, 2002; Oakley, 2005; O'Callaghan &
Linehan, 2007; Scharenberg & Bader, 2009; Doucet, 2010; Madden, 2014; Oakley, 2014), to applications in developing countries (Hoyle, 2002; Dodman, 2007).
Capitalism requires the production of space (Lefebvre, 2000) whereas today more than before, mobile capital and the spatiality of production result in inter-urban competition (Cox, 1995:214; R. Hudson, 2001). Following from this, urban redevelopment and revitalisation has become a core agenda, implying that large redevelopment projects occupy a central role in urban policies (Rodriguezet al., 2005). The waterfront constitutes a globally circulated model of development and planning (S. V. Ward, 2006). It has fostered homogenised seaside spaces in a range of cities, referred to as material expressions of globalisation (Wood, 1998) and as packaged landscapes, with the design of an exclusive area for distinct ways of living, working and consuming (Knox, 1993). Yet, the local-global nexus cannot be simplified (T.C. Chang, et al., 2004). Despite its role in revitalisation, culture has not suddenly entered the port. The waterfront is as old a settlement as civilisation itself (B. J. Hudson, 1996). It is thereby inherently cultural (Monge, 2004:232):
Ports, portrayed as huge human artefacts dictated by the impersonal forces of nature and functional necessities, did not free themselves from the functional dictatorship of past forces to become today's cultural expressions of the memory of the city and the city's willingness to look forward. They have always been cultural.
Urban ports were central spaces of economic activities, but as Fernando Monge stresses, they were socially constructed spaces where cultural practices took place. Their transformation into today’s “waterfronts” implies changed forms of economic and cultural relations and new trends in urban redevelopment practices. Waterfront redevelopment projects thus represent and illustrate wider shifts in urban societies and urban policies.
With this in mind, to understand waterfront projects, we should acknowledge the importance of context, of historical, cultural and institutional conditions. Another point is that raising the attractiveness of cities aim not only to provide a spatial product, the waterfront, but also to distinguish it from competitors. A focus on the comparative advantages of the city is reflected in an aim to build upon unique qualities (Turok, 2009). Thus, whereas Fjordbyen and Euroméditerranée share characteristics of the waterfront model (Rodrigues-Malta, 2004; Bergsli, 2005, 2008; Bertoncello & Dubois, 2010), the local and historical contexts of Oslo and Marseille add distinctiveness to the projects. Their institutional welfare state context potentially negotiates competitive policies and neoliberal rationales. The cultural strategies used are another potential contribution to the particularities and uniqueness of these cities’ waterfront projects.
Culture-led urban redevelopment policies
Culture is now seen as the magic substitute for all the lost factories and warehouses, and as a device that will create a new urban image, making the city more attractive to mobile capital and mobile professional workers (P. Hall, 2000:640).
Urban redevelopment policies target both cultural production and cultural consumption, and its economic relevance is conceived to be important in both manners. Culture is also conceived to play a role to the vitality and cohesion of cities, and a means to counteract the homogenising effects of globalisation (Nylund, 2001:227). Culture-led urban redevelopment has been the term capturing the use of culture in redevelopment policies (Cf. S. Miles & Paddison, 2005), concerning various policy strategies that combine urban redevelopment and the use of culture.
Four forms have been identified as particularly prevalent. One caters to the growth in cultural production and the cultural industries in cities (Scott 2000a), whereas the other three cater to cultural and recreational consumption.
Thefirst policy form is the facilitation of “creative quarters or clusters,” whereby creative industries (e.g. media, design, and clothing industries) can co-locate and enjoy synergies from each other’s creative capacities (Scott, 2000b; O'Connor & Xin, 2010; Mathews, 2014). The secondis the development of cultural districts, consisting of a ”vibrant milieu” combining cultural and consumption offers to give an atmosphere of buzz and trendiness (Cf. McCarthy, 1998, 2006). Thirdly, culture is also used as a means to give the city a new image and to create pride, and sometimes it is used to increase social cohesion and/or to enhancing quality of life (Rogerson, 1999; Baileyet al., 2004; Bayliss, 2004; Bassettet al., 2005; Avery, 2006;
Hetherington & Cronin, 2008). Here, festivals and other cultural events (such as the European capital of culture) are used to promote the city and contribute to its development and identity (Kearns & Philo, 1993; Garcia, 2005). Fourthly, cultural flagships, architecture, design and public art have been used to produce symbolic landscapes (Zukin, 1995). These strategies have become widespread means to reinvest culture in cities.
There is an ambivalence when qualities of culture are sought to be liberated by the requalification of urban space, urban spectacle, or to boost the urban economy (Bianchini &
Parkinson, 1993; Zukin, 1995; Sæter & Ekne Ruud, 2005). Culture is operative through the distinctions it may make, in use and theme, between social classes and national or ethnic identities. Culture is necessary to human development, but it is not “innocent” or neutral. It implies collective, meaningful practices shared within groups but not necessarily between groups. An inside and an outside are demarcated following stratifications based on class and
ethnicity, and according to worldviews, ideologies, lifestyle preferences and economic powers (Bourdieu, 1979). Today, cultures are diffused, fused, and appreciated in new ways, implying that globalisation has diminished some of the social divisions that culture can make. This adds to the diversity of cities, where a range of both peoples and cultures add multiple experiences and practices. In urban redevelopment projects, cultural strategies might thus contribute to diversity, but also to social distinctions and divergent spatial patterns.
As a range of Western cities is characterised by social inequalities, segregation and gentrification, the city centre’s role as a place of diverse enactment of citizenship is at stake, as is the right to stay put in the city (Lefebvre, 1982; D. Mitchell, 2003b; Kohn, 2004; Harvey, 2009b;
Harvey & Potter, 2009; Brenneret al., 2012). Urban mega-projects such as waterfronts have regularly been contested because of the market rationales that promote urban land as mere investment objects, which may stand in contrast to the role of city centres and inner cities as important social spaces and meeting grounds. They are lived and meaningful places of inhabitants, and targets of their desires and needs. But they are also diverse places with the qualities that follow a great range of cultures and social identities. They are hybrid places of everyday life, which requires some stability, and they are restless expressions of difference and change, which require mobility. Thus, there are permanent contrasts, further challenging because of historical paths. Cities have evolved with symbolic events and materiality that are connected to collective resources. The city centre has on this basis social, historical and symbolic values that can come in conflict with the aim and need of modernisation.
Studies of waterfront projects have scarcely included the investigation of projects in a broader perspective on city centre and citizenship, or as part of urban restructuring and national urban policy. The reason for the lack of this relational approach to waterfront projects might be their spatial demarcation, implying that they lend themselves as cases to the study of urban, area- based policies. The consequence is that they are easily treated as “containers”, within which redevelopment processes or dimensions of these processes are isolated for analytical purposes.
The waterfront projects of Oslo and Marseille are developed with a perimeter, but to understand their political rationales, strategic role and outcomes, their development will be studied in connection to wider urban restructuring policies.
Placing the phenomena in perspective
To understand complex urban development and restructuring policies, Jessop et al.(2008) stress that socio-spatial theory must include more than one spatial dimension. Development of historical configurations and interconnected socio-spatial dimensions such as territory, place,
landscape and scale within wider restructuring processes must be emphasised (p.392). Urban theory acknowledges the dialectical relations between society and space, whereby human agency shapes material surroundings, which in turn shape social actions (Nylund, 2001). This is the understanding of the “socio-spatial” with which this thesis is concerned.
The inner city, within which the waterfronts Fjordbyen and Euroméditerranée are developed, is a spatial entity including landscapes and places within wider territorial systems.
These geographical concepts are included and combined in the perspectives informing this thesis research. Perspectives on competitive policies and perspectives on landscape and place have mainly been treated separately in the discipline of geography. The former perspectives have been discussed mostly from a political economy perspective, the latter from a cultural geography perspective. This study is motivated by the aim to contribute to a more integrative conceptual understanding. To bring the theories together, the perspective of (critical) cultural political economy offers a frame of analysis. This perspective encourages a framework where cultural and economic explanations might be combined to gain knowledge about the nature of competitive policies (Sayer, 2001; Jessop, 2004). It means that historical and institutional aspects of the political economy, the relations between social structures and meaning, and “the cultural turn” in the social sciences are included in an explanatory framework (Jessop, 2004). The ontological basis is that reality is constituted by the interplay between meaning and materiality (Dannestam, 2009:55). Cultural political economy further encourages the denaturalisation of social
phenomena, which in the case of this study means a critical investigation of attractiveness by focus on its socio-spatial dimensions in urban redevelopment policies.
A critical perspective on competitive policies is provided by the theorisation of neoliberal urbanism and its localised and global forms (Pecket al., 2013). Shifts in the political economy of cities are herein investigated as part of wider systemic changes. The Fordist-Keynesian system developed during the 20thcentury combined industrial mass-production with a state-supported system of mass-consumption and the provision of inclusive forms of social security. After the economic crises striking Fordism, the knowledge-based economy has replaced the Fordist- Keynesian consensus (Jessop, 2002a:Ch.3). The changed character of the state in the global knowledge-based economy can be referred to as the competition state, which characterises:
a state that aims to secure economic growth within its borders and/or to secure competitive advantages for capitals based in its borders, even where they operate abroad, by promoting the economic and extra-economic conditions that are currently deemed vital for success in competition with economic actors and spaces located in other states (Jessop, 2002a:96).
The competition state is not only characteristic to the national state, but also to other territorial
authorities such as a city. The nature of these competitive policies in the realm of urban redevelopment is of interest in this thesis.
Neoliberalism implies enhancement of policies stressing deregulation, privatisation, growth orientation, and trickling-down effects to reduce social inequalities (Harvey, 2005).
In cities, neoliberalism is combined with entrepreneurial policies, which apply private sector management techniques and the facilitation to business to assure local, economic growth (Harvey, 1989b; Leitner, 1990). What is new is not only these political forms, but also, and importantly to this thesis, a supportive rhetoric and strategy of “the creative city” which has gained political force. “The creative city” brings urban space and culture together in new ways as part of the goal of economic growth (Peck, 2005). As both rhetoric and strategy, the “creative city - creative class thesis” most prominently developed by Richard Florida (2004) has been largely adopted and circulated in Norwegian cities (Bergsli, 2005; Lysgård, 2012). In France, the thesis tends to be less explicitly adopted, yet strategies employed by local governments include the cultural sector and creative professionals in urban regeneration (Le Galès, 1993; Girel, 2003),
The current study of the redevelopment policies of Oslo and Marseille aims to assist the understanding of localised and temporal forms of competitive policies and their socio-spatial implications in the city. If neoliberal ideology travels freely as a specific idea about societal transformation, its actual materialisation in policy outcomes must still be investigated as contextualised in the various settings within which the ideology is transformed into political practice (Brenner & Theodore, 2002; Pecket al., 2009). Fjordbyen and Euroméditerranée are mainly planned and developed by public authorities, in countries characterised by generous public spending on distributional measures to assure social protection, hence what can be characterised as strong welfare states. The extent to which ideals of an inclusive welfare state persists in informing urban redevelopment policies is thereby of interest.
Welfare is provided by the state, the market and in civil society (Halvorsen & Stjernø, 2008). The domains of the welfare state have been characterised as social benefits, pensions, schooling, health and housing (Stamsø, 2008:195). Universalism in the context of the welfare state implies that all citizens have equal status vis-à-vis the welfare state, whereby public authorities guarantee equal benefits and services (Dahl et al.2014). The cornerstone of the universal welfare state is concern for all citizens and their wellbeing, where the aim of equality means giving everyone the capability to create a good life (F. K. Hansen, 2009:57). Norway and France are categorised within two different welfare state regimes, a socio-democratic/
universalistic regime and a corporative-conservative regime respectively (Esping-Andersen, 1990). In identifying different types of welfare state regimes, three principles are central: “de-
commodification, referring to the decoupling of the welfare of individuals from market
dependence; levels of social stratification, pointing to the role of welfare states in maintaining or reducing social stratification; and the relative roles of the state, the family and the market in providing welfare (Bambra, 2006:74).
The Norwegianwelfare state model builds on universalism, which implies that a range of welfare arrangements such as child benefit, elementary education and health care include all citizens (Dahlet al., 2014). They are still complemented by targeted arrangements, such as social security and housing benefits. Universal welfare states represented by the Scandinavian countries are characterised by less social inequalities, as income is distributed more evenly in society, and because the social contract implies that the middle classes have interest in sustaining this system since they are included in the arrangement (pp.26-27). The universalistic welfare system as it is developed in the Northern European welfare states is comprehensive and institutionalised. It includes a broad range of public services, particularly provided by local authorities. The system depends on tax financing and redistribution (Lundberget al., 2008).
The Frenchwelfare state model evolving after World War II depended on labour market relations taking responsibility for social security (Hassenteufel, 2008:227). However, a comprehensive welfare state was developed, that included health care and robust social security and pension plans (Nasiali, 2012:1022). The model has come to include universal benefits, although current French welfare policies are reliant on both professional and national solidarity:
The former includes benefits obtained by work, whereas national solidarity refers to health care, family benefits and policies carried out to prevent social exclusion (Hassenteufel, 2008:227).
Patrick Hassenteufel (p.239) stresses that the French state has a stronger yet new role today because of reforms in retirement and housing policies launched in the 2000s. Yet according to the author, they tend to be mainly symbolic. A central role of universalism in French policies that is relevant here is also what Mark Ingram (2011:xxi) refers to as “republican universalism”,
“the idea that the preservation of the Republic depends on its being composed not of distinct communities and diverse cultural identities but on individual citizens equal under law and linked directly to the state without intermediary representation”.
Aliberalwelfare state regime is typified by the Anglo-Saxon Atlantic countries, which are characterised by minimal and highly targeted measures as well as the promotion of private welfare provision (Esping-Andersen, 1990).
Transferred to the urban context, I hold universalism to include goals of social cohesion and social equity. In urban redevelopment policies it may include development of functions and accessibility for all citizens, as well as ways to assure participatory methods that result in
inclusion of different social groups in planning and in the distribution of outcomes. Susan Fainstein (2008:782) compared four urban mega-projects in Europe and the US and concludes that despite the competitive rationales of all projects, a minimal commitment to socially just policies were evident due to requirements for jobs and affordable housing (p.783). Still, the European projects were in comparison to their American counterparts assuring more
governmental decision-making powers and commitment to egalitarian goals, and the Dutch case more so than the English one. These findings point to the role of the welfare state as important to inclusion of socially just goals in new redevelopment projects.
A shared general vision of Fjordbyen and Euroméditerranée is to provide universal access to the waterfront. Whether this vision is materially expressed is related to political goals to decouple attractiveness from social categorisation. Based on the perspectives introduced in this section, connections between competitiveness and attractiveness and their socio-spatial implications are studied in the urban redevelopment policies in Oslo and Marseille, two cities found on each side of the European continent.
Introducing the empirical study
“The idea competition is over. Time will tell whether the success will have a lasting effect - whether the ideas stay visions or become a reality”. This reflection initiates the report summarising the results of the concept competition “The City and the Fjord - Oslo year 2000”
(Oslo Heritage Society, 1983), which sets off municipal plans for the redevelopment of Oslo’s inner city port areas. Later these areas were encompassed in Fjordbyen, the fjord city, a municipal plan to transform Oslo’s central seaside into a multi-functional and recreational waterfront, part of the restructuring of the inner city. In Marseille, plans for larger redevelopment initiatives at the central industrial port and its surroundings were outlined locally in the early 1980s, necessitated by a precarious economic situation and a materially degraded inner city. The modernisation of Marseille was turned into the plan for one of the largest recent state-led redevelopment projects undertaken in France: Euroméditerranée. The geographies of the central parts of the inner cities of Oslo and Marseille are largely changed by Fjordbyen and
Euroméditerranée. The waterfront projects constitute an expansion of the city centres with emphasis on three interlinking aims: economic development, cultural effervescence, and the activation of urban space. These shared traits encourage a comparative study of culture-led urban redevelopment policies. Illustrations on pages 12-15 show the maps of the city districts (ill.3-4) and maps of the inner cities indicating functions and places central to this study (ill.5-6).
The cities
Oslo and Marseille are located on each side of the European continent. They share topographical characteristics, with hills and protected forests constituting natural surroundings. Marseille is located between mineral hills and the Mediterranean Sea, covering a largely intensified surface of 240 km2(City of Marseille, 2000a). It is the second largest city in France, with a population of approximately 850 000 inhabitants in 2009. Oslo, Norway’s largest city and its capital city, covers a surface of 454 km2. It is located between the Oslo fjord and forested hills, with political consensus to preserve the forests. The municipality of Oslo surpassed 640 000 inhabitants in 2014. Strong population growth has been a matter of municipal concern throughout the 2000s and has fostered a high construction rate (City of Oslo, 2008c). Fjordbyen is aimed at accommodating a share of Oslo’s growth and increasing the city’s recreational and business offers. In Marseille, Euroméditerranée targets the accommodation of a desired growth.
Compared to Marseille, Oslo is not in pressing need of economic restructuring. It has a diverse economy characteristic to national capital cities and a low level of unemployment (City of Oslo, 2010b).1The period between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s was characterised by population decline. Growth began in the early 1990s and became unprecedented in the 2000s.
Marseille, historically known as a port city par excellence, has struggled to regain its dynamism after economic crises, delocalisation of companies, lack of investments and demographic decline in the 1970s and 1980s (Morel, 2005). Marseille’s specialised industrial base made the city vulnerable to the structural crises. Between 1975 and 1990, the unemployment rate tripled in Marseille, from 7.1 to 23.3 percent (Donzel, 2005). In 2005 it was 14.1 percent.
In their national contexts, both Oslo and Marseille have had large income inequalities between individuals and between districts (Statstics Norway, 2003; INSEE, 2004). Both cities have a symbolic “division line”, with similar patterns of socio-economic segregation. Marseille is divided by the main street la Canebière in a South and North axis, whereby the South is more residential and rich than the more mixed northern parts, containing industrial sites and a large part of Marseille’s public housing estates (Roncayolo, 1996). Compared to other large French cities, Marseille was in 2001 the city with the largest income inequalities. The richest part of the population earned a salary 15 times greater than the poorest part (INSEE, 2004). Oslo is known to be divided by the river Akerselva, along which industry and working class dwellings were developed in the 19thcentury. The river came to symbolise the division between a working-class East and an upper middle-class West (Kjeldstadli, 1990; Hagenet al., 1994; Barstad, 1997).
1The official unemployment rate was at 0,1 percent in 1971, 0,6 in 1981, 5,1 in 1991, 2,8 in 2001 (NAV, 2007:28- 33), and 3,8 percent in 2014 (City of Oslo, 2014: Ch.4).
Oslo is characterised by greater disparities in living conditions and unemployment than the rest of Norway (Mogstad, 2005). Settlement patterns among immigrants have also followed these divisions, with larger concentrations in the North of Marseille (Sayadet al., 2007:Ch.2), and in the East of Oslo (Kvingeet al., 2012), partially due to provision of public housing and differing real estate prices. Oslo has also been more segregated than other Norwegian cities considered by several variables such as income and education, household composition, unemployment, immigrant settlements, and mortality levels (Barstad, 1997:Ch.3). Though the level of segregation in Oslo was reduced between 1970 and 1993 (Wessel, 2000), it increased between 1980 and 2003, most likely due to the deregulation of the housing market in mid-1990s (Ljunggren & Andersen, 2014:15).
Illustration 1. Marseille's topography.
Illustration 2. Oslo's topography.
Illustration 3. The districts of Oslo. The following maps are credited Liv Bente Belsnes.
Illustration 4. The districts of Marseille.
Illustration 5. The inner city of Oslo.
Illustration 6. The inner city of Marseille.
Fjordbyen and Euroméditerranée
Fjordbyen covers 226 hectare and is divided into eleven sub-areas sequentially planned and developed along the seaside, as illustrated below. Aker Brygge was developed as early as the mid-1980s, whereas the general plans of Fjordbyen were enhanced from the late 1990s onwards.
Bjørvika and Tjuvholmen were the first new areas developed, and Vippetangen and Filipstad are reaching the final planning stages in 2015. The industrial port has been relocated from the centre to the eastern peripheral area of Sjursøya, whereas Frognerstranda on the Western side is a leisure port. Together with Akershusstranda and Rådhusplassen (the Square of the City Hall), minor redevelopment endeavours characterise this latter area, compared to Tjuvholmen and Bjørvika, which are entirely redeveloped. In comparison to Tjuvholmen’s perimeter of a mere 3 hectares, the perimeter of Bjørvika is 70 hectares.2In Bjørvika, the estimated number of inhabitants is 7-8000, and 15-20 000 employees. In Tjuvholmen, the estimated numbers are 1500 inhabitants and 1700 employees.
s
Illustration 7. Fjordbyen's areas. Source: Oslo Waterfront Planning Office, City of Oslo (2009).
2Project presentation: http://www.prosjekt-fjordbyen.oslo.kommune.no/english_pages/, retrieved 23 Sept, 2014.
The perimeter of Euroméditerranée originally covered 310 hectares divided into seven redevelopment areas, as illustrated below. These areas are developed as zones, with different identities and core functions targeted. Cité de la Méditerranée is the proper waterfront zone, with emphasis on recreation, public space, cultural institutions and signature architecture. Joliette represents Marseille’s new business quarter, whereas rue de la République constitutes a renovated street axis between the old city centre and the Old Port (Vieux Port) and the new waterfront. Saint Charles is the transport and university hub, whereas Belle de Mai is the media and cultural cluster. In between Belle de Mai and Joliette, neighbourhoods are rehabilitated. The first perimeter was defined in 1995, yet it was in the end of the 2000s extended to the north by Euroméditerranée II by 170 hectares. In total, Euroméditerranée is planned to accommodate 38 000 new inhabitants and 35 000 new employees.3
Illustration 8. Euroméditerranée and its zones and areas. Source: Euroméditerranée.
3Project presentation: http://www.euromediterranee.fr/quartiers/presentation.html?L=1, retrieved 23 Sept, 2014.
The governance models selected in the two cities have interesting similarities and differences. Though Fjordbyenis a municipal project, central government has important stakes in its redevelopment (e.g. in the development of infrastructure and relocation of national cultural institutions). Oslo’s Agency for Planning and Building Services (PBE) is in charge of the project in terms of providing evaluations, plans, information services, and by facilitating cooperation and launching initiatives promoting Fjordbyen. It also proposes area development plans and provides impact assessments and evaluations of construction plans. Through its Fjordbyen Office, PBE has a coordinating role to ensure the totality and connectivity of the respective projects areas, which are owned and developed by companies. The overarching decision to develop the entire seaside was made by Oslo City Council in 2000, whereas the Fjordbyen plan was adopted in 2008 (City of Oslo, 2008b). Thus, the City Council gives direction to Fjordbyen, whereas the companies are in charge of the actual development.
Euroméditerranéeis governed by a council consisting of multiple territorial authorities, with the central state at the core. The state established the public development agency
l’Etablissement Public d’Aménagement d’Euroméditerranée,EPAEM, in 1994. An
Administrative Council was appointed to politically steer the project’s directions and survey its financial records. An agreement between central, regional, and local authorities was signed in 1993, in which the central state assumed financial responsibility for 50 percent of the project, with the remaining territorial authorities sharing the remaining financial costs. The central state’s engagement was also reflected in the appointment of Euroméditerranée as an “Operation of National Importance” (OIN).4The key responsibilities of the development agency EPAEM are urban planning and strategy, planning and coordination of operations; financial planning, operational management, project promotion and marketing (EPAEM, 2010:3). EPAEM is subject to public audits. Its main directions, investments and selected strategies are voted on in the Administrative Council, in which representatives from the territorial authorities and relevant ministries are eligible to vote. Fjordbyen and Euroméditerranée are thus governed by different models which influence the directions of the projects and their roles to Oslo and Marseille.
4Opération d’Intérêt National. Euroméditerranée was the second OIN after la Défense in Paris.
The research design
The objective of the thesis is to investigate socio-spatial dimensions and implications of culture- led urban redevelopment policies and processes in Oslo and Marseille, by an investigation of the following research questions:
(i) What are the aims of the redevelopment projects, and which role do the projects play in the territorial restructuring of the cities?
(ii) How are culture-led urban redevelopment strategies socio-spatially embedded and targeted?
(iii) How are the waterfronts projects governed and negotiated?
The investigation is empirically addressed through three domains of enquiry that correspond to the research questions: urban restructuring and rescaling, culture-led urban redevelopment strategies and governance/negotiation.
Thefirstdomain, urban restructuring, addresses the role of the waterfront projects in relation to wider aims and rationales of urban transformation and the reconfiguration of the city centres. I enquire this first domain by discussing the processes through which the aims and strategies of Fjordbyen and Euroméditerranée have developed, the agents involved, and the scales on which the projects are targeted. By so doing, the scaled and relational aspects of competitive policies are investigated, as is the question of how attractiveness is linked to wider concerns of territorial competition. This domain also includes a scope on the relational aspects of the waterfront projects as part of inner-city reconfiguration. This scope brings forth questions about social and spatial cohesion in contemporary redevelopment policies and processes.
The seconddomain of enquiry targets the cultural strategies selected in the waterfront projects. Economic strategies and outcomes of the selected redevelopment policies are not targeted per se. This focus is not feasible within this thesis, and should rather be enquired in depth elsewhere. Instead, the focus is on the role of competitive policies in the concerns with urban attractiveness and how urban space and culture are combined, and how these strategies are universal or targeted. To answer this question, the cultural offers and design and the new role of culture in redevelopment and territorial policies are investigated. Culture is therefore
conceptualised as the cultural domain, in other words, the institutionalised cultural sector and how it is oriented in social and territorial ways, and as the ways in which meaning is constructed in and through collective practices taking place or intended to take place in the inner cities of Oslo and Marseille. The production and creation of place and landscape are among the practices constructing meaning, which I thereby have included to investigate how the projects are socially
oriented. Connected to both definitions are the roles of cosmopolitanism and diversity, as these are characteristics at once defining cities, yet also being an explicit feature of 21stcentury European cities due to the global circulation of peoples, cultures and lifestyles. The extent to which cosmopolitanism, difference and diversity are included in the plans, strategies and outcome indicates the ideas, rationales and role of competitive policies.
Third, the governmental, participatory and negotiating dimensions of the redevelopment policies form a domain of enquiry necessary to the understanding of the redevelopment processes, and the ways in which socio-spatial configurations are shaped and reshaped to enhance specific forms of attractiveness in culture-led urban redevelopment. Various visions of urban development exist, and agents have different powers and strategies to realise them. The distribution of powers in the decision-making process and the capability to impact, or negotiate, socio-spatial aims and the strategies carried out in the redevelopment process is thus targeted. I will in this regard discuss the governance regimes formed to develop the redevelopment projects as well as the role and actions of cultural institutions and local associations in impacting the projects.
Using a comparative case study design
The methodological framework is discussed in depth in Chapter 3, but should be briefly introduced here. The waterfront projects are investigated by a qualitative case study design. The projects are selected as cases of new urban redevelopment policies, in which the investigation is made by a triangulation of document, interview and observation data principally collected mainly between 2007 and 2010. The document data consist of planning and policy documents as well as promotional material. Fifty-eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with politicians, developers, planners, consultants, state officials, artists, architects, intermediaries and directors of cultural institutions, as well as representatives of local associations engaged in the redevelopment processes. Participation at public and political meetings, organised excursions, observation of the evolvement of the redevelopment processes and the uses of the areas have complemented the analysis. The research design is shown in Figure 1 below.
The selection of Fjordbyen in Oslo and Euroméditerranée in Marseille for a comparative case study is made on three grounds. First, both waterfront developments are mega-projects largely transforming the inner cities of Oslo and Marseille. The former port areas are planned to be accessible to citizens and visitors and to provide attractive and multifunctional spaces by the use of cultural strategies.
Second, these similarly outlined projects are developed in two cities which are largely dissimilar. The decline in Marseille’s industrial economy and population and a degrading urban landscape implied that the city was in precarious need for development. The transformation of Oslo’s waterfront is based on the possibility to modernise central territories, which the port authorities no longer depended upon to meet their functional needs. The redevelopment processes therefore offer different contexts for the projects’ rationales, which may illuminate the particularity of policy incentives and strategies. Both cities have, however, been governed by conservative parties for a long time; Oslo from 1997 and Marseille from 1996.
Third, national similarities in welfare state characteristics provide a contextual framework motivating the thesis. Policy trends such as neoliberal urbanism have been largely studied in liberal states, whereas continental European welfare states with important universal
characteristics offer a context in which other approaches to redevelopment policies is assumed to negotiate neoliberal policies. Both projects are predominantly initiated by public authorities, thus political priorities in question of social cohesion and social diversity can be addressed.
The comparative approach selected does not correspond to a stringent comparative analysis developed by the use of a predefined set of variables. The project’s motivation is to study the redevelopment processes in depth and to pay attention to the contextual conditions of the waterfronts. The focus on process further implies that a stringent comparison is difficult.
Rich and in-depth case studies are also interesting because of their peculiarities. Finally, the names of the two waterfront projects reveal some of the change in scope between them:
Fjordbyen, the fjord city, calling attention to Oslo’s local, recreational aspects, and
Euroméditerranée, calling attention to the pan-region and exchange. These differences invite discussions of contextual conditions and separate orientations supplementing the comparative analyses.
Figure 1. The research design.
Restructuring policies
- scale and reconfiguration
Culture-led urban redevelopment
strategies - commodification of
culture and space
Governance and negotiation
- agency and participation in urban governance Critical cultural political economy
Analytical perspective
Methodology
Cases Fjordbyen in Oslo and Euroméditerranée in Marseille Objective
and research questions
Objective of thesis:to investigate socio-spatial dimensions and implications of culture-led urban redevelopment policies and
processes in Oslo and Marseille.
Research questions:
What are the aims of the redevelopment projects, and which role do the projects play in the territorial restructuring of the cities?
How are culture-led urban redevelopment strategies socio- spatially embedded and targeted?
How are the waterfront projects governed and negotiated?
Qualitative comparative case studies Data: documents, interviews, observation Domain of
analysis
Outline of thesis
I have in this chapter introduced core concepts, methods and questions that inform the analysis of urban redevelopment policies and processes in Oslo and Marseille. The next chapter introduces and elaborates upon the theoretical framework of this thesis. The chapter discusses economic and cultural explanations of urban redevelopment policies, and their mutual benefit, as encouraged in the perspective of CPE. In chapter 3, I present the methodological basis on which this study rests, as well as the data and methods used in the case studies.
Chapter 4 and 5 narrate the cities’ development separately to focus properly on process and the contextual conditions important to how redevelopment policies are carried out as part of urban restructuring. The evolvement of the projects from visions and plans into strategies and materialisation is analysed within the spatial dynamics conditional to the two redevelopment projects. In chapter 6, two national cultural institutions are presented as sub-cases illuminating how multiple scales are activated in culture-led urban redevelopment. The aim is to illustrate how this process affects and engage the institutions, and how both sub-cases represent factors contributing to the upscaling of Oslo and Marseille as “capital cities”.
In chapter 7, the waterfront projects are analysed as part of the consolidation and
reconfiguration of the inner cities. I discuss the meaning of cohesion in these policies, and the extent to which “landscape” is a planning concept and goal replacing the aim of social cohesion.
In chapter 8, I zoom in on the waterfront projects and on spaces produced within them. I investigate ways in which places are produced in contemporary area-based redevelopment policies. The cultural strategies used in the projects are discussed in Chapter 9, in the form of cultural planning and in connection to the creative city thesis.
Chapter 10 targets the negotiation of the redevelopment policies, yet with a particular and narrow approach. I restrict the discussion to deal with how difference is treated and expressed in the projects in terms of the cultures of cities and a cosmopolitan outlook. Secondly, I discuss how public and cultural institutions can become inclusive arenas based on different ideas about attractiveness. I discuss how this scope may substantiate the cosmopolitan city as ideal and realisation of the just city. The third approach deals with how voices have been raised to emphasise alternative perspectives and to put social inclusion and universal access on the agenda. I briefly discuss how the governance processes allow such perspectives to impact the projects. The final chapter provides a concluding discussion where the comparison between the cases is discussed more generally.
2. URBAN POLICIES BETWEEN ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL EXPLANATIONS
In Chapter One, I introduced a limited discussion about research on waterfront projects and culture-led urban redevelopment aimed to position this thesis in a research tradition. The objective is enquired in three domains of analysis: restructuring policies, culture-led urban redevelopment strategies and governance processes. I aim to address these three domains from the perspective of cultural political economy (CPE), which brings a framework allowing economic and cultural explanations to be combined in the understanding of urban policies.
Within this perspective, pragmatic theoretical approaches can inform the analysis of the empirical cases of Oslo and Marseille.
This chapter sets out to present and discuss an integrated theoretical framework of competitive policies and economic, cultural and social realities informing urban redevelopment processes. The comprehensive perspective of cultural political economy is useful, as it not only encourages the integration of cultural and economic perspectives, but also targets the nature and discourse (understood as idea-based conception (Nylund, 2014:43)), of the knowledge-based economy, which I for the current purposes will reconceptualise as “the knowledge society”. CPE also favours a multi-conceptual framework in order to make truthful, theoretical claims about the complex social world. The perspective may contribute to diminish the theoretical distance between scholarship focusing on the cultural domains and political economy (Ribera-Fumaz, 2009).
I will elaborate on the theoretical focus on three relevant phenomena based on Bob Jessop’s (2004) point that CPE should address historical and institutional aspects of the political economy, the relations between social structures and meaning, and the cultural turn in the social sciences. The focus on these aspects is in this thesis encouraging the use of the concepts of urban restructuring, the knowledge society and the creative city/city of culture. The critical dimension of CPE advocating the need to de-naturalise political discourses and practices is central, and is here discussed in terms of the unequalising aspects and effects of competitive policies. This theoretical framework is intended to prepare the analyses of Fjordbyen and Euroméditerranée within their wider rationales and contexts, and the understanding of the relations between competitiveness and attractiveness in culture-led urban redevelopment policies and processes. By so doing, the ways in which social categorisation is engaged is analysed as part of the concerns with the socio-spatial dynamics of contemporary urban transformation processes.
Cultural political economy (CPE)
The overarching analytical framework of this thesis research is cultural political economy (CPE), which shares views with critical realism in its critique of the positivist view upon society as shaped by universal laws, an object of measurement, predictability and law-like, regular patterns (Bhaskar, 1998). Andrew Sayer (2000) has been central in advancing the perspective of CPE.
Another significant contribution is made by Bob Jessop (2004), who has also elaborated on the notion of the knowledge-based economy. CPE, like critical realism, rejects universalistic understandings of reality and reductionist economic analysis. The focus of this thesis is not on economic processes or systems per se, but on the strategic realms of competitive policies. They are conditioned and motivated by both economic and cultural dynamics. Thus, I will not discuss the CPE scope on the capitalist system, but rather introduce the concepts necessary for drawing on the perspective in a comprehensive enquiry of urban redevelopment policies and processes.
The research community has increased its attention to what valid knowledge and theories are in critique of universal and totalising theoretical systems (R. Hudson, 2001:6). This means that conceptual pluralism can be valuable, but that we should be critically observant of the limits of theoretical claims and of all-encompassing theoretical frameworks. Following critical realism, our theories and conclusions about social reality are fallible and a constant object of revision.
Society’s complexity must be grasped as an open system, allowing theoretical and
methodological pluralism in enquiries. In a critical realist perspective, social scientists might not only explain and interpret societal phenomena, but also contribute to the understanding that society could be different and changed. The task is thus to explore the apparent and that taken for granted, which naturalise social phenomena as matters of fate (Sayer, 2011:222). Social sciences should in this perspective offer some form of opportunities for social improvement, hence making use of critical theory and moving beyond the aim to understand and explain society (aligning the Frankfurt School). Normative standpoints are included in questions of unmet needs, and what ought to be and not. Theory with socio-political aims, that seek to bring in critical concepts such as value in order to contribute to change, can thus be used (R. Hudson, 2001:11).
Political economy as the basis of CPE engages research on the relations between economic and political systems, and in CPE, it is further connected to how other social practices relate to these systems (Jessop, 2004). From debates in the social sciences about the relationship between economy and culture and their respective importance to societal change in the 1990s, the “cultural turn” was conceived by Andrew Sayer (1997) as resulting in a reduced focus on the substantial aspects of capitalism, and thereby a lack of enquiry of redistribution and class, as well
